XML CO538 Anonymous Questions and Answers Keyword Index

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Keyword reference for abs

Question 14 (2008):

Submission reference: IN1539

Is there an abs() function/process in occam, as for the life of me I can't find it in the library documentation :).

Answer 14:

Oddly enough, no, there is not! Perhaps we should add one just for the sake of completeness? But you can write your own quite easily:

  INT FUNCTION abs (VAL INT v)
    INT r:
    VALOF
      IF
        v < 0
          r := -v
        TRUE
          r := v
      RESULT r
  :

This is an example of an occam-pi function declaration (slides 88..93 of shared-etc). It can be used in the expected way – e.g. "x := abs (i)". Bear in mind that this will cause a run-time error if you were to ask for "abs (MOSTNEG INT)".

Keywords: abs